Fox News reports that while Obama may have exaggerated a teensy little bit when he said that he goes skeet shooting all the time, he has gone at least once. Maybe twice. And even though he has “profound respect” for the traditions of hunting in this country, and “has a strong record of support for our 2nd Amendment rights” *cough* … he couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

News of President Obama’s apparently long-secret fondness for skeet shooting came as a surprise to those who say they have witnessed the president’s “awkward” attempts at pinging the (clay) pigeons.

This has only happened with the president at Camp David, at most, a couple of times, according to a source who says he has been to the retreat on a half-dozen visits with Obama.

“The only time he shot skeet was for President’s Cup,” said the source, referring to a shooting competition tradition involving the presidential Marine guards. “I was there. He stayed for about five minutes, and couldn’t leave fast enough.”

Skeet shooting “is very hard,” said the source. “Especially for someone not used to guns … He couldn’t have been more uncomfortable.”

Don’t hold your breath waiting to see if he accepts Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s (R-Tenn.) offer of a skeet shooting contest.

Like this:

The new Breitbart site I told you about, The Conversation, just launched this morning! Ace, Iowahawk and John Hayward have been particularly active – which is a good thing because they’re some of the best writers we have on the right. Go check it out!

The FBI raided the offices of an eye doctor suspected of providing free trips and even underage Dominican Republic prostitutes to U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez.Also, the Dominican hookers are speaking to reporters.

President Obama and the bipartisan Gang of Eight in Washington who want to create a “pathway to citizenship” for millions of illegal aliens have sent a message loud and clear to those who follow the rules: You’re chumps!

Have you patiently waited for months and years for the State Department and Department of Homeland Security to slog through your application? You’re chumps!

Have you paid thousands of dollars in travel, legal and medical fees to abide by the thicket of entry, employment, health and processing regulations? You’re chumps!

Have you studied for your naturalization test, taken the oath of allegiance to heart, embraced our time-tested principle of the rule of law, and demonstrated that you will be a financially independent, productive citizen? You’re chumps!

First up — the Sequester. If the Republicans do nothing, $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years in spending cuts from the baseline (what we were going to spend on our current course), go into effect. That includes $600 billion in defense spending Republicans and conservatives don’t want to cut, and $600 billion in domestic spending cuts Republicans and conservatives do want.

The Republicans can handle that – doing nothing. They should let the sequester spending cuts go into effect, and come back passing the full defense appropriations needed in the House, daring President Obama and the Democrats to fail to provide adequately for the nation’s defenses.

And Praise the Lord, that seems to be precisely what the Republicans are going to do, let the sequester spending cuts go into effect.

Republicans also have the upper hand under the Continuing Resolutions (CR) that are now provide for federal spending. The current CR runs out on March 31, which means there will be a government shutdown then unless a new CR authorizes further spending. This gives the Republicans the leverage to impose a federal spending freeze on federal discretionary spending.

Earlier this month, we covered a suspect symposium being sponsored by a pro-Obamacare organization, designed to provide journalists with “specialized education in health care reporting”.

The anticipation of media bias was palpable. Previous revelations of this relationship prompted one reporter to write, “this sounds like a program to teach reporters to write supportive stories about the health care reform law.”

The latest symposium held on the 17th and 18th of January, was sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund and hosted by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW). It was held at Reuters headquarters in New York City, and had a featured student body of 17 mainstream reporters – including the Dallas Morning News, Reuters, and Money Magazine.

Now that it has since come to pass, concerns of blatant media bias should be even more heightened in the aftermath.

The SABEW has posted a recap of events at their ‘Business of Health Care Symposium’ on their web site, and the emphasis is clearly directed at the positive aspects of Obamacare.

For example, in a section titled ‘Spreading the Word to America’, speaker Rachel Klein explains to the reporters that “a key challenge” in messaging lies in “informing consumers of how the ACA (Affordable Care Act) will benefit them”.

The key subplot to Rubio’s immigration push, of course, is how much of a headache it’ll be for him with conservatives in the 2016 primaries. The talk-radio charm offensive is mainly designed to get grassroots opinion-shapers like Rush to at least wait and see what the bill looks like before lobbying against it, but more broadly it’s designed to move the Overton window on what positions are acceptable for a good conservative to hold. Rubio can afford to have immigration reform fail; he can’t afford to be RINO-ized over it. Like I said yesterday, whether or not a bill ends up passing, he’s already achieved something significant by getting Rush et al. to acknowledge that “recognizing reality” in terms of a grand bargain on immigration is something “admirable and noteworthy.” No matter what happens now, unless he ends up voting for a watered-down Democratic bill with token enforcement (which he won’t), he’s got that as a soundbite for his primary ads in 2016.

I heard the man in the black balaclava before I met him. “I love this crowd!” he boomed, shortening his stride so as not to run into the people in front of us. He looked at the throng and smiled so broadly that snow found no purchase on his mustache. “It’s great to be pro-life, isn’t it? I’d hate to be on the other side of this issue. I mean, how can you support abortion unless you go out of your way not to think about it?”

I couldn’t tell from his tone if the question was rhetorical, but I agreed with him. We appraised each other in an instant. He was big, and apart from the “40 years too many” sticker on his chest, his outfit and close-fitting cap looked almost medieval. He would have been the man who pointed you to the armory if you asked for directions in an unfamiliar castle.

We were North and South, bearded and clean-shaven, monochrome and motley, veteran marcher and wide-eyed rookie, one of us expansive and the other reserved, but kindred spirits anyhow, and we knew it. Intrigued by his comment about the power of denial, I said, “Some of the people on the other side say they’re into science and we’re not.” The man laughed. “They say ‘science,’ but if you show them an ultrasound, they run away!”

Remember how, right before the election, we had about three weeks of media hype about declining unemployment and hopeful signs of economic recovery? Yeah. They lied through their teeth:

Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — decreased at an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 (that is, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter), according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Most economists predicted that the economy slowed in Q4, but I don’t know that anyone expected a negative number. Business Insider notes that the expectations were around 1.1% for Q4, which would have been a big drop in itself from Q3?s 3.1%.

CAPITOL HILL — During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday on Capitol Hill about how to prevent gun violence, Senior Fellow of the Independent Women’s Forum Gayle Trotter was loudly heckled by anti-gun advocates in the crowd after she suggested women need firearms to protect young children in their homes.

“An assault weapon in the hands of a young woman defending her babies at her home becomes a defense weapon,” Trotter said as jeers erupted. “Guns are the great equalizer during a violent confrontation.”

I will have more about this in a separate post – if there’s video of the heckling…

Update:

I found the video, but the heckling wasn’t picked up enough on the video for a stand alone post. You can hear a faint outcry at the end of Totter’s statement, when she says I speak for millions of women…”

The Obama White House reacted to the horrible news today that the economy is shrinking by blaming the decline on Hurricane Sandy and the defense spending cuts. White House Spokesman Jay Carney had the gall to blame Republicans for the GDP number and defense cuts.The Hill reported:

“Our economy is facing a major headwinds, and that’s Republicans in Congress,” Carney said.

The letter itself is measured, matter-of-fact, and echoes many of the themes we’ve covered here before.

They find the lies of “assault weapons” to be disingenuous. They find the threat of banning standard capacity magazines to be a maneuver towards banning entire classes of firearms. They note that the very firearms Congress and the President are trying to outlaw are those that are most protected under the Founder’s original intent as affirmed in Miller, Printz, and Heller by the U.S. Supreme Court. They point out that the 1994 ban had no effect on crime. The bring up the McMinn County War as a example of how citizens have had to go to war against corrupt Democrats as recently as 1946 to depose tyrants. They point out that gun control always precedes tyranny.

They pull no punches, and make a very eloquent, rational defense of the Second Amendment and the Constitution in general, and suggest an eight-step course of action.